“Neither the dead, nor the tired, ever consciously know the moment of transition to Paradise.”

On Music

by Becky Elder

The week had come and gone like a jet plane. I would have been hard-pressed to remember any significant event, but was certain that there had been more than I could count. Further, I would have tried to rationalize the breakneck pace by calling it life in the twenty-first century, just to count reality more important than sanity as the hours blurred into days, and days into weeks, without hope of anything but repetition. I was exhausted.

I trudged upstairs, leaving everything behind. The dinner dishes were strung out on the counter. The socks and shoes from ten pairs of feet were waiting patiently to be put away or on. The Monopoly set was sprawled across the rug, doubtless the result of a hostile takeover. The dryer was bump, bump, bumping a rhythm that made the trip upstairs heavier with the thought of folding laundry first thing in the morning. The children, all of them home from the four corners of the earth for the Christmas holiday, were gathered around the woodstove enjoying the remains of the day as I glanced back and bid them the best wishes for a good night that I could muster. Waking gave way to sleeping before my head hit the pillow.

Neither the dead, nor the tired, ever consciously know the moment of transition to Paradise, but that night, I sensed my redemption was nigh as I heard music. It was my son Sam, Play-It-Again Sam, on the piano. It must have been one a.m. and he had loosed “Phantom of the Opera” from the keyboard. That, in and of itself, was not too unusual, though wonderful. It was what followed that filled my soul so full that I was breathless with all seven Christian virtues at once.

The voice was my third son’s. It was rather like George himself, rough, but determined to be heard. It only took a refrain for the next one to join in. Was that Cousin Joel or Neighbor Jackson? And, creating a polyphony as robust as Niagara Falls, there was the deep, resonating bass of dear James Bendowsky. Then Peter Love added the particular clarity that an electrical engineer’s mind sounds like when it bursts into song.

I was drawn like a leaf in the wind to the top of the stairs. The sight below will never be replicated and will always bring tears of unmitigated joy and hope to my eyes: six grown men, all Northfield men, gathered in unabashed song. Sam’s piano was only the smallest hedge to hold in the power and beauty of the song. The beatific vision of these men, arms draped shoulder to shoulder, love unleashed, time ignored, woes forgotten, burdens dropped, filled the entire house as a song.

I dared not intrude.